1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to systems for automatically searching and filtering information, and in particular to systems for collecting and presenting summary information from a variety of sources on the Internet.
2. Background Description
A great many data sources are currently available on computer networks such as the Internet. For example, many newspapers, radio stations, magazines, and even news reporting services have available web sites with lots of information. However, it is not currently convenient for a user to quickly browse the contents of more than one of these information sources at a time. For one thing, web browsers only show one site in a window at a time. Even if multiple windows are open, the sites take up lots of screen real estate, are all laid out differently, and have a good deal of extraneous information on them, such as advertisements. Also, different software programs utilizing different protocols may be needed to access this information: some of the desired data may be stored in a WWW site (requiring HTTP and an HTML parser to access it), while other data may be stored in a usenet discussion group (requiring the NNTP protocol for access). It is therefore desirable to have a tool which can collect and display summary information from disparate sources, particularly one that can do so in a consistent and compact manner, regardless of source and layout of the original data.
Two specific types of systems attempt to achieve similar advantages. Systems such as the xe2x80x9cMy Yahooxe2x80x9d ticker are able to display personalized information to the user. However, the user is restricted to sources provided by the Yahoo WWW portal. The Pointcast model is another example of a similar solution. Microsoft Active Desktop supports the notion of an information channel. This requires a provider to make information available in Microsoft""s specified protocols and data formats.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a tool which can collect and display summary information (e.g. headlines) from disparate sources in a consistent and compact manner, regardless of the source and layout of the original data.
Another object of the invention is to be able to pull information from different sources without a central provider acting as a portal.
It is also an object of the invention to be able to pull information from a source without requiring providers to massage their information into a special protocol or data format.
A further object of the invention is to leave control of site selection completely in the hands of the user.
Yet another object of the invention is to provide means for accessing the full text of a source from a summary.
In accordance with the invention, a user selects an arbitrary number of sites from which summaries are to be drawn. These sites may be accessible through a variety of protocols, and for each protocol there is a set of data acquisition procedures which will take the information and put it in a common format for further processing. Lookup parameters are used to determine the protocol applicable to a given site, so that the appropriate data acquisition procedures may be applied. The raw information acquired from each site is then pre-processed to return a set of URL/information pairs.
The invention then allows the user to configure constraints which further filter this information, the results of which are then immediately displayed to the user. The results are evaluated by the user, and the foregoing sequence is repeated by the user until summary information which the user finds appropriate for the site is displayed. Multiple sites may be evaluated together in this process, so that the user may configure a particular set of constraints to be effective for multiple sites.
After completion of this configuration process for the sites selected by the user, the filtered information can be organized and presented to the user in a number of different ways, such as a multi-line horizontally scrolling ticker or as a collection of tabbed views. Although a typical site may generate a plurality of URL/information pairs, there is no necessary connection between how these pairs are grouped by site or by set of constraints in the summarization process, on the one hand, and how the information is organized for display.
The invention allows the user to remove and add sites to those selected, and to repeat the process for different groups of sites, enabling the user to adaptively construct multiple sets of configuration constraints, each appropriate for a particular site or group of sites, and organize and combine the summary results into a composite display useful for the particular purposes of the user.